The presentation of gender in the television coverage of coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many inequalities in society, and the presentation of gender in television coverage has been one such area where these disparities have become glaring.
Source: safejournalists
The legendary late Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “women belong in all places where decisions are being made”. While men symbolically ascend to their speaking platform as if military leaders, women are interviewed about what it is like to home-school your children for four months. The division between the portrayal of men and women on the news during the pandemic has been painfully apparent. Over the course of almost a year, there has been ample evidence that has shown female leaders overseas surpassing their male counterparts in their dealings with this pandemic. As the British public attempted to decipher another convoluted and verbose announcement, Jacinda Ardern proudly announced the zero active cases news to New Zealanders.
The panic which is fuelling these male-dominated bodies is increasingly evident to the general public, who are on the receiving end of it. While Boris Johnson has become the laughing stock of social media among many of the younger generation, women are being celebrated in the press for their success in dealing with the virus. Jacinda Ardern displayed just how calm her approach has been by broadcasting a bedtime story to the nation. However, Ardern and Judith Collins’ election briefing two weeks ago was criticised by Steve Braunias for “lacking in spark”. Ardern’s measured response was “politics isn’t a bloodsport”. There is nothing new about men using belittling language to describe women or their strategies when they feel threatened by female power. Similarly, despite Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (AOC) inevitable encounter with abuse, as Trump compared her to a child back in August, she continues to set an example of a new type of leader who is both warm and strong in character. We only have to look at history to tell us that this defensive form of criticism by men surfaces when women are threatening their cosy patriarchal order. In 1874, Henry Maudsley attacked Elizabeth Garrett’s success as the first woman to open a medical practice by claiming to be looking out for women’s reproductive health. Male politicians across the globe could learn a thing or two from this new breed of politician, a breed that treats voters like people, rather than cogs in the economy. Ardern and AOC teach us that determination to create real change and retaining humanity are not mutually exclusive.
Unfortunately, the celebration of female leaders is not reflected in the experiences of the majority of women. Throughout the coverage of the pandemic, female experts have been sidelined to the extent that it has reversed years of progress. Women in the media have been consistently depicted as weak and struggling, while men are quite literally pedestalised as they physically step up to make an announcement. Despite women being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, financially and mentally, the daily Covid-19 meetings in the UK are largely conducted by Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and Dominic Raab.
Women are fighting the virus on the frontline on so many levels. Globally, 69 per cent of healthcare professionals are women. The harrowing footage of NHS workers in full PPE resembles something out of Star Wars, and yet, women are not represented when it comes to making decisions about the safety of the nation. In 2015, 80 per cent of experts on the news were men, even though half of masters graduates in the UK are women. This has been vehemently clear on television news over the course of the pandemic.
Kantar’s “Insight Division” report observed “six tribes”, when it came to the response to lockdown. The “precarious worriers” category was an overwhelming 64 per cent female. A precarious worrier tends to be highly concerned about getting ill, home-schooling and finances. Therefore, as well as quite literally being on the frontline, as they tend to Covid-19 patients, many women have also been subject to greater psychological strain than men. A report by the Institute for Fiscal studies found women to be three times more likely than men to admit that their mental health deteriorated during lockdown. This could be a result of the majority of day-to-day household tasks still falling on women, which in 2020 has meant the added burden of home-schooling and childcare. It could also be to do with the fact that the virus has been more detrimental to women’s finances than men’s. Many women are in jobs which do not pay as well, are on zero hours contracts or are trading career progression for flexible working, in order to bring up children.
Overseas, the story is no different. In fact, in developing countries, traditions that assign women as primary care-givers are more ingrained than in the West. 16.7 million Latin American women have been forced into making the decision between quarantining (living with their employer) and making money or caring for their children at home with no unemployment benefits. Women make up the majority of informal trades like street vendors, who are provided with zero financial support from the state. What starts as an economic predicament, quickly snowballs into a lose-lose moral dilemma. Would you risk putting your child in danger as they take to the streets during their education-less existence or fail to put food on the table after a long day of near impossible home-schooling?
Press conferences dominated by men on pedestals is not just negative for women. Although the normalisation of discussing mental health is progressing, men are still less likely to admit to their struggle. Last year on social media, there were a number of trends involving men posting a photo of themselves to encourage them to “speak out”. This was a response to the shocking statistic that revealed how men made up 75 per cent of suicide deaths in 2019, with men aged 45-49 particularly vulnerable. The portrayal of stoic male politicians in the media makes it even harder for your average man living in the UK to speak out. The unwavering expectation for men to bury compassion in a professional environment must surely fuel the conditioning of men to remain silent. When too much pressure builds up, a meander down a tragic path can be triggered, whether that takes form of drugs, alcohol or even suicide. The government fail to take any responsibility and it is the families who are left to cope with the debris of a society which instils fear in men and rallies against women’s capacity to express emotion.
This brings us back full circle, to analysing the presentation of male and female leaders amid the pandemic. There is no doubt that the exclusion of women from the UK’s Covid-19 panel is an issue of inequality. The car crash results speak for themselves, and perhaps this will be the wake-up call needed for more women to be included in politics during global crises. We can only live in desperate hope that Amy Coney Barrett’s succession does not crush the progress for women that her predecessor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg so skilfully engendered into American justice. Care International’s “SheLeadsInCrisis” campaign provides hope for creating an equal political arena, which can in turn strive for equality in the communities that need it most. Toxic masculinity in politics must be displaced by taking inspiration from the likes of Ardern and AOC. Most importantly of all, that inspiration needs to translate into more women in positions of power. In all those places where decisions are being made.
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